Book Review - He's Gone by Deb Caletti

He's Gone by Deb Caletti

Publisher: Bantam

Publication Date: 14 May 2013

Genre: Literary Fiction / Mystery

My Copy: Library - paperback

The Sunday morning starts like any other, aside from the slight hangover. Dani Keller wakes up on her Seattle houseboat, a headache building behind her eyes from the wine she drank at a party the night before. But on this particular Sunday morning, she’s surprised to see that her husband, Ian, is not home. As the hours pass, Dani fills her day with small things. But still, Ian does not return. Irritation shifts to worry, worry slides almost imperceptibly into panic. And then, like a relentless blackness, the terrible realization hits Dani: He’s gone.

As the police work methodically through all the logical explanations—he’s hurt, he’s run off, he’s been killed—Dani searches frantically for a clue as to whether Ian is in fact dead or alive. And, slowly, she unpacks their relationship, holding each moment up to the light: from its intense, adulterous beginning, to the grandeur of their new love, to the difficulties of forever. She examines all the sins she can—and cannot—remember. As the days pass, Dani will plumb the depths of her conscience, turning over and revealing the darkest of her secrets in order to discover the hard truth—about herself, her husband, and their lives together.

Review:

I had such high hopes for this book. It sounded interesting, and everyone raves about Deb Caletti. This was the first book by her that I have read, and I have to say I was disappointed. Most of the book takes place in Dani's head. There's not a whole not propelling the book except her memories of the past and her fuzzy ideas about the night Ian went missing. I didn't connect with any of the characters, and most of the side characters just made me angry. I admit to skimming the second half or so of the story. The only reason it gets two stars and that I bothered to skim the second half was that I was interested in finding out what happened to Ian, although it wasn't surprising.

Book Review - One Plus One by Jojo Moyes

One Plus One by Jojo Moyes

Publisher: Pamela Dorman Books

Publication Date: 1 July 2014

Genre: Literary Fiction / Women's Fiction

My Copy: Library - hardback

Suppose your life sucks. A lot. Your husband has done a vanishing act, your teenage stepson is being bullied and your math whiz daughter has a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity that you can’t afford to pay for. That’s Jess’s life in a nutshell—until an unexpected knight-in-shining-armor offers to rescue them. Only Jess’s knight turns out to be Geeky Ed, the obnoxious tech millionaire whose vacation home she happens to clean. But Ed has big problems of his own, and driving the dysfunctional family to the Math Olympiad feels like his first unselfish act in ages . . . maybe ever.

Review:
 Wow. I think I love Jojo Moyes even more than I did after I read Me Before You. Her books are just what I'm looking for right now, a little bit romance and a little bit real life. This is a lovely story about a woman who is trying so hard to provide for her children and teach them kindness and honesty. It's also about a man who doesn't really appreciate the good life he has. It takes a very long road trip in a small car with 4 people and a dog to really allow Jess and her kids to relax and make Ed see how good he really has it. But Jess did something desperate that may change everything.

Jess is a single mom who does everything she can to keep her head above water. She's positive and quick to bounce back from problems (both Ed and Nicky refer to her as Tigger). She works two low income jobs to keep the roof over their heads and food on the table, but she still has a hard time paying the bills. Her daughter Tanzie is a math genius, and her stepson Nicky is socially awkward and bullied. The police ignore the escalating problems her children face with the neighbor hood bullies even after Nicky gets his face busted up. Tanzie is very innocent and naive, and Nicky tries to shield her from the world. Ed is rich by most standards but doesn't see how lucky he really is. He makes a mistake in an effort to remove a clingy woman from his life, and it comes back to threaten his whole life.

Jess does her best to put a brave face on and encourage her children, but it's not easy when it seems like everything is falling apart. Tanzie gets a chance to go to a fancy school, but Jess doesn't have the money. One night Ed ends up at the bar where she works, and she gets him home in a cab. Once she gets him home and leaves, she's faced with a moral dilemma which haunts her throughout the book. It's really a great plot line with humor and sorrow. I definitely laughed several times and cried at others. You want so desperately to help Jess and her kids out that it hurts. I'll be looking for another Jojo Moyes book to read soon, and I absolutely recommend this one!

Book Review - Contents May Have Shifted by Pam Houston

Contents May Have Shifted by Pam Houston

Publisher: W W Norton & Co

Publication Date: 6 February 2012

Genre: Literary Fiction/Short Stories

My Copy: Library - hardback

Stuck in a dead-end relationship, this fearless narrator leaves her metaphorical baggage behind and finds a comfort zone in the air, “feeling safest with one plane ticket in her hand and another in her underwear drawer.” She flies around the world, finding reasons to love life in dozens of far-flung places from Alaska to Bhutan. Along the way she weathers unplanned losses of altitude, air pressure, and landing gear. With the help of a squad of loyal, funny, wise friends and massage therapists, she learns to sort truth from self-deception, self-involvement from self-possession.

At last, having found a new partner “who loves Don DeLillo and the NHL” and a daughter “who needs you to teach her to dive and to laugh at herself”—not to mention two dogs and two horses—“staying home becomes more of an option. Maybe.”

Review:

I picked up this book because it was on a list of "Must Reads by Women," and I didn't really know much about it. It started out so great, but then I lost interest pretty quickly. I don't read very many short stories mostly because I like my stories to be longer with a defined and well sculpted plot. Which is probably why this book and I didn't get along. The book is divided up into 144 little stories about events or places the main character visited or regularly frequented (a possible title choice being "144 Reasons Not to Commit Suicide). I had a hard time connecting to it because of the way it jumped all around in time and place. Not my thing. I skimmed through most of the second half because I did enjoy a couple of the short pieces, but not enough to hold my interest. I do have some quotes to share from early in the book.

Quotes:

If I die tonight it will be with every single thing unfinished (like, I suppose, any other night), and yet, what a gift to die on the verge of tears. I have spent my life trying to understand the way this rock and this ache go together, why a granite peak is more dramatic half dressed in clouds (like a woman), why sunlight under fog is better than the sum of its parts, why my best days and my worst days are always the same days, why (often) leaving seems like the only solution to the predicament of loving (each other) the world. - pg 14

He tells me we've been put on earth to crack each other open, and then to stick around long enough to watch the thing that, having been cracked open, suddenly shines. He says he knows there is only a thin wall between himself and all that shining, but sometimes he forgets how thin the wall is, because somebody came along when he wasn't looking, and painted the damn thing black. - pg 15

I'm beginning to understand that when we want to kill ourselves, it is not because we are lonely, but because we are trying to break up with the world before the world breaks up with us. - pg 21

At our first therapy session in over a year Patrick said, "Pam! Don't you get it? If Ethan spends every minute he's eating your mango, longing for the old mango, he doesn't have any brain space to worry about losing the mango he's got right now." - pg 47

Janine said, "The best way to think of Ethan's energy is like mistletoe. We have all these nice kissy associations with mistletoe, and even out in nature it doesn't look that bad, but give it enough time and it will kill the tree." - pg 61

Rating Breakdown:

Plot: 1 star

Pacing: 1 star

Characters: 3 stars